One year to live

By Richard Rozalewicz

One year to live is a personal development book rooted in the notion of having a limited time to implement the changes we’ve always wanted to see substantialize.

This is a practical guide that prompts a great deal of self-reflection and self-examination. It pushes us to ask the hard questions that we’ve worked so valiantly to suppress. It forces us to confront the harrowing truths of reality, and regrets we are predisposed to face on our deathbeds. A book that does not allege to transform your life or change who you are, instantly, but rather a book that guides you to do that for yourself. Because at the end of the day, nobody can be held accountable for your successes or failures, but you. Give yourself a chance (or one year to live).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Rose Publishers
• Release date: Jan 20, 2024

Book preview

Part 1

One Year to Live

Chapter One:

Do you actually want to change?

We often move throughout our lives with very few moments of true contemplation (unless you are a serious meditator).. From the very beginning, we are instilled with ideas, ideas about how the world operates, ideas of good and evil, ideas of what we should be when we grow up, ideas of what path to follow, and what journeys are worth the hard work. Our parents taught us what their parents taught them and so on. This sounds like I am saying we have no free will, that everything we know and all we have become is a product of the environment we grew up in, the people we hung out with, or the outside influences that were introduced to us at some phase or another. That is the complete opposite of what I am trying to say in this book.

However, it’s not an ‘either /or’ type of situation. Sometimes we operate on autopilot, we let all of our beliefs and the knowledge we accumulated about our surroundings guide our thoughts, feelings, behaviour, and decisions. Other times, we are more aware, more conscious, and more in the moment. It could happen when we’re going through a life-altering event, something that makes us stop and rethink every step we’ve ever taken. More often, these contemplation moments occur when we, or our loved ones, face tragedy.

The Awful Truth

The truth is, we have always known the truth about life, about this world, and our collective fate as human beings. We, like the generations of people before us, are aware of our mortality, perhaps only at times. We know what death looks like from attending funerals, we know its palpable inevitability. We’re constantly flooded with advice to make our lives worthwhile, to make the most out of this opportunity we’ve been given, to seek successes and accomplishments, to pursue happiness, and fulfilment, to live a meaningful life, to find our passion, our vocation, to mobilize all the tools at our disposal to leave a positive and indelible mark.

When we ponder over the fact that death is inevitable, we also face how unpredictable it can be. As a result, we’re met with the pressure to do more, and be more. Suddenly we start questioning our entire existence, we think of all the time we’ve wasted on idleness, the relationships we’ve invested so much into that we’ve lost a part of ourselves in the process, and the fleeting thrills we’ve chased that brought us only bitterness and desolation. It comes as a surprise at first, almost like waking up after a bad dream, we’re not sure of who we are nor where we stand.

And then the realization hits all at once, and we’re fuelled by an irrepressible sense of motivation to uproot our lives and make loud and drastic changes (that can sometimes be a phase known as a ‘midlife crisis’). We take the closest thing we have to an idol, someone we look up to, or a concept that fascinates us, and we try to embody their essence. We think that because we don’t recognize the person we’ve become, we might as well reinvent ourselves into an ideal, no matter how intangible or unrealistic it might be. But like most projects we tend to undertake when we’re blinded by the promise of a better us, this one too eventually fails or is left unfinished, hanging in the air like a threatening ghost, smoke from a pyre of burning hopes and dreams, withering away into the unknown.

This happens in cycles, first the dread and the depression, then a glimmer of hope, a blazing fire, inspiration, furious thoughts swarming in scraps and shreds, exhilaration, burnout, and back again, like a snake perpetually condemned to eat its own tail. It’s morbid imagery, I admit, but I feel inclined to say it nonetheless because this book is not about pumping you up with false confidence or instilling you with deceitful and misleading assurances.

The Existential Overhaul

In order for us to get to the good, we, first, must go through the bad, navigate all the dilapidation, dot the i’s, cross those t’s, and dig deep to unearth all the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs we’ve internalized and suppressed, the very things that latched onto our minds like a parasite we cannot seem to detach our identities from, the things we think we are and the things we quiver before. The first step to take is this; putting everything out in the open, our darkest fears, and our deepest desires, they simply cannot remain unnamed, unknown, and unspecified. If we truly want to conquer the self-limitation within, we must first give it a name, a face, and an identity.

The confrontation needs to happen on a bright and cloudless day, where everything is what it seems to be, and where nothing disguises itself as what it isn’t. Sometimes, we’re not well-equipped to deal with or plan for grand schemes like finding meaning amidst the chaos, or preparing for our imminent demise so that on our deathbed, we’re rather filled with felicity and joy of a life lived fully instead of regret and an unshakeable sense of failure.

When Tragedy Befalls

The longer you live, the more people you are likely to accompany to the threshold of death, to the point where you become familiar with the process, you know what comes next, but no matter how many partings you go through, you still don’t feel confident to the extent that you would have absolutely no regrets if you were to draw your last breath in that very moment. Even those who have known of their terminal illnesses for months or years ahead often lament how unprepared they are to leave this plane of existence. In their final weeks, many people seek wisdom, reconciliation, healing, a second chance at personal growth.

It’s almost a renaissance of some sort where people want to revive the spiritual part of their being and bring it forth to enjoy the small pleasures in life. Priorities shift and change, habits dissipate then reassemble, an empire falls down crashing, and a new one rises from the depths of its ashes. But why are we more profoundly open to experiencing the delights and tragedies of life only when we (or our loved ones) have been given a deadline, an expiration date?

Many people boast about catching themselves faltering and on the verge of plunging into a sunken rabbit hole just in the nick of time. They’ve seen the revival the consciously dying to get and they want to get a whiff of genuine fulfilment before it’s ‘too late.’ Many of us have fallen victim to this thought. Yet kept delaying living our lives in accordance with our true values and authentic selves simply because it wasn’t the ‘right’ moment, we had other more pressing matters to tend to, and our priorities resided with the people we were responsible for.

Compos Mentis

We’ve always seen taking care of our own needs and making sure they’re being met on a daily basis as a selfish act, a rare indulgence. We pushed the lids on our hopes and dreams because there was always something more important to take care of, some more practical venture to follow. We learned that surviving in the real world meant there was no place for idealizations, fantasies, or fancy daydreams. We had to discipline our imagination, to suppress it, in eventual preparation for the ultimate sacrifice ritual, the muzzling ancient tradition of killing the delusional child to give birth to the lucid, sensible, and rational adult. Abolish lunacy, eradicate insanity, and ascend as compos mentis.

And so, all the infantile pleasures get pushed far down the well, they hide deep in the subconscious patiently waiting for the day to come when they are unleashed into the world. Because of this delay, some people begin to feel fragmented having left so many parts of their lives for ‘later,’ piles of unfinished business, and unfulfilled lifestyles. However, ‘later’ always comes sooner than we expect, sometimes much, much sooner when there is nothing left to mend.

Life is as perfidious as the waves, but it doesn’t amount to the blind malevolence of time. Burdened by hollow dreams and a lugubrious sense of emptiness, we begin to experience the guilt and remorse of an unsatisfying work life, a neglected spiritual existence, and a futile attempt at cultivating our true hearts. If prompted to answer, most people will say that they would change everything about their lives if they knew they only had one year to live. They will craft the perfect bucket list, quit their job, go on adventures, explore the world, start a project, spend that quality time with family, study a language they’ve always wanted to learn, acquire a long-admired hobby, or skill, etc.

The more pessimistic kind will say ‘if I have one year to live, I wouldn’t change a thing, because what’s the point really?' Perhaps it is pointless, but it is pointless regardless of whether we have one year or one hundred years to live. We are going to meet our downfall anyway, so I say why not go with a bang, why not make the most of our lives, why not strive to change the world and positively impact the people around us?

Stop Being a Passive Bystander

At times, it may feel like you’re a passive participant in your life, an outsider, an onlooker, waiting for joy and success to come to you. You may even have neglected your inner self so many times that you don’t know what you truly want anymore, you’re not even sure if it’s worth the time and effort to pursue anything at this point, you’ve become accustomed to the state you’re currently in, comfortable in your own little bubble, refusing to let go of the knowledge you assembled in your own mind about the nature of the world. But you don’t have to leave this world feeling like a failure, full of shame, fear, and regret because you were unable to navigate your life by the light of your authenticity, or because you couldn’t honour your true self through your actions and behaviour.

You don’t have to be a passive participant anymore, you don’t have to sit and react to what the world throws at you, and you don’t have to remain dissatisfied with yourself and the way you’ve lived your life so far. You can be an active participant, you can and should be the protagonist in your own journey, and you don’t have to put your passions and interests aside because of your family responsibilities or societal norms. You are in control, you can buy that guitar you always wanted, that canvas stretcher you always dreamed of, and take that once-in-a-lifetime trip you always fantasized about.

You can awaken your dormant love of nature, take long meditative walks in the woods or sit by the sea and gaze at the crashing waves and mewing seagulls. You can push yourself out of your reading slump, and build that monumental library you have always visualized in your home. You can take up meditation, yoga, weight lifting, and running. You can change your dietary habits to a healthier and more balanced regimen. You can reconnect with old friends, nurture existing bonds, and cultivate new ones.

It’s all about reclaiming your life, one step at a time. We tend to get impatient with ourselves, only allowing a certain number of chances, then anything beyond, we retract back to our shells with a crushing sense of defeat. But there is room, there is always room and that is what you should always keep in mind. There is room for improvement, there is room for change, not the windy and destructive type, but the exhilarating, uplifting, and exciting type.

You don’t need to erase your identity and create a new one to live the life of your dreams. On the contrary, change is about the essentiality of healing and your willingness to invest in curative efforts. When faced with their terminal prognosis, many would say they’d have adopted a slower pace of life, minimized their attachment to material ambitions, changed their living space, or reduced their social circle to those whom they’re closest to. Maybe they would have moved to a rural area, another country, another continent. Maybe they would have built the home of their dreams, or torn down a house inhabited by ominous ghosts from a painful, yet never distant past.

Though I am sure, most if not all of these people would do everything they can to get a few stolen moments where they get to appreciate the beauty of a wild rose bush, the distinct smell of earth before it rains, the enthralling melody of birds chirping in the morning, and the buzzing sound of bees pervading the crisp air of a delightful spring day. They would do their utmost to feel their titillating taste buds arouse upon taking a bite out of a decadent slice of chocolate cake, to draw a smile on the face of their loved one knowing they’re the reason behind such elation, to envelop their arms around a long lost parent in a tight embrace, to feel the pleasure of their back floating and gently gliding in the serenity of the ocean with a breath-taking view of the soaring blue skies, the crisp salty air, the rippling blue water, and the warm rays of sunshine delicately seeping through a frosted billow of clouds.

Which Tense Are You Living In?

When we reminisce over our lives, we often notice our tendencies to take the picturesque for granted because we expect it to always be there, so we tell ourselves we will get to appreciate it when the time comes when we’re not so pressed down by the millions of commitments and engagements we’ve made when we have room to breathe and be in the present moment. In the majority of cases, five years will go by, ten years even, decades, slipping away like water through cupped hands, and then we realize all that has been lost.

We think we missed our opportunity to make the change we’ve wanted and to rearrange our lives until they align with our core values. But this is what this book is